A new collection of poetry and prayer. Vosper once again gives expression to the beauty and complexity of life in ways that can touch and move us on many levels. Identifying our interconnectedness as a core principle of our common, human journey, Vosper plays with imagery and symbol, weaving us into a whole that lifts and ennobles us all.  We All Breathe is the third in a series of poetry and prayer books authored by Vosper.

From Gretta: It has been another three years and another accumulation of resources prepared for use at West Hill United, a spiritually non-exclusive progressive community growing out of the Christian tradition. It sounds like a mouthful but when it is put on paper or experienced within the context of a gathering of inspired and inspiring people, it is, simply put, beauty.

From the preface, “We are an amazing family, we humans. Diverse in every aspect, we are yet strikingly similar. Our physical characteristics display variations on the typical – two eyes, arms, legs; ten toes and fingers; and a head crowned with hair of natural shades ranging from white through blonde, red, and brown to black. We thrive on the same nutrients delivered through an astonishing array of foods prepared in both ancient and ever more creative ways. We use the same parts of our brains, more or less, to explore radically different parts of our world and to engage in dramatically opposed and sometimes violently defended ideas. We all know joy, sorrow, exhilaration, and despair and we breathe our way – in and out – through them. Each one of us was born; each one of us will die. In between those two events, we all breathe.”

We All Breathe joins Holy Breath (2004) and Another Breath (2009) as the third in my Breath series.

Example Prayers:

Easter Week
By Gretta Vosper

How beautiful the energy of those ignited by a dream!
How filled with song and dance and passion!
They set their sights on points of possibility
and work, play, inch, leap, edge, sing themselves,
(and often those about them)
toward their far-off summits,
ever-over-brimming
with the joy of what will be.
May we catch the awe
that sweeps up their hearts
and casts them toward a more beautiful tomorrow!
And may we hear,
even in our darkest moments,
the hope they beat into our hearts with their passage.
May it draw us into harmony,
filling us with a passion all our own.
This we breathe into being,
as those who dwell in possibility.
Amen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This light which bathes the world,

pours from a source so close, so near

and yet we cannot touch it

or fence it in that it not be lost.

This light which shatters darkness

is pierced together, flame by flame,

shining from a thousand sources

but is diminished by the loss of one.

This light which fills the furthest corner

brings with it warmth

to fill billions of hearts

and bind them with its common truth.

This light which pulls us toward tomorrow

is carried deep within each of our hearts

and lit by you and me and him and her

and all who live upon this earth.

This light which is yours and mine to carry

burns only in the hope-filled heart,

the source of all our inspiration

and all the beauty that will ever come to be.

Let it shine.